


relax your face, take regular breaths

by smlltlks



Series: i don't mind the rain [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Character Development, Drabble Collection, Drarry, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Memories, Modern Setting, only very very slightly though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25360345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smlltlks/pseuds/smlltlks
Summary: Draco and Harry continue to discuss moving; Harry hears from Astoria.
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass & Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: i don't mind the rain [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835137
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	relax your face, take regular breaths

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up: this implies that Lucius was sometimes physically abusive. Read with care.  
> Please note that this work is a part of a series! All works in this series work as stand-alones, but for a better experience, feel free to check the others first :3

From the corner of his eye, Draco could see his current roommate pacing the corridor. Harry had been at it for ten minutes now, walking back and forth and back again, clearly absent, mentally. He was on the phone, but the blond didn’t know who he was talking to. Instead of trying to figure it out, he brought his attention back to the screen before him. Laptops were such fine pieces of technology, really, he thought to himself, as he continued his research. _“Research.”_ You couldn’t really call it that, since he was just typing questions into google and clicking the first page that came up for answers. But it kept his mind and hands busy, and he found himself increasingly satisfied with his findings, barely able to hide the grin that was slowly widening on his face. It distracted him, but not too much. By the time Harry had reached the sofa he was sitting on, and raised an arm to tap his shoulder, Draco was well aware of the young man’s presence.

“Draco…” Harry began, and Draco was surprised by the tone of voice that struck him: one heavy with worry.

“Did you know,” Draco picked up, ignoring what the other was trying to do, “that Cardiff is the rainiest city in the UK?”

Silence.

“Draco.” This time it was more firm.

He still didn’t bother looking up. “London’s the driest. Manchester and Birmingham are pretty rainy too though. Did you know that?”

“No, I did not.” Harry replied eventually, fighting some kind of silent battle against himself. “Why are you researching which cities are the rainiest?”

 _Researching. Hah._ “So that I know where to look. For an apartment.”

A hand clamped onto his shoulder and forced his eyes towards Harry. Harry, who stood there, brows furrowed into a confused frown, clearly very unhappy with his last response.  
“You’re planning to leave the city?”

Him. Alone. No, Draco was not planning on leaving the city alone. He was planning to do so _with_ Harry; he thought he had made that clear by now. He had first implied it a few days ago, when he had mentioned that _“we”_ could take the kettle from this place to their next one. Again, this morning, when he had asked Harry how many bedrooms _they_ would need.

“Listen, Harry,” he sighed. “I know you don’t want to leave your friends but you can just use the floo network to visit them at any point in time, regardless of where we are. Your job is flexible too, and—”

“What?”

“I’m saying it doesn’t matter where we move. Not to you, anyways, as long as it’s comfortable.” He explained, increasingly annoyed, too, at his former schoolmate’s oblivion. “As for me: I want a place with a lot of rain, and I want to see the sky. That’s why you asked me what I would like, right? A few days ago?”

“Draco. Stop. I won’t move from here.”

The words dropped like bombs.

“But you aren’t _happy_ here, are you? Am I just not seeing it?”

Somehow Harry’s gaze seemed to soften then, but not into a kind smile. It was more of a sad one. He was going to talk about how he couldn’t leave even if he wanted to, or something like that. About how he was worried. Harry was always worried. It pissed Draco off, but he knew he shouldn’t blame him. Draco worried a lot too, he just didn’t say it. He tore away from the sight and focussed on the screen before him again, scrolling down the page with graceful, controlled movements.

“Birmingham looks kind of shitty,” he said then. “But I like it. It’s central, its affordable, and it rains a lot.”

“Astoria called me.”

Astoria.

Draco’s vision blurred, and suddenly the air seemed a lot thicker around him. Time was slowing, a little: his hands certainly weren’t moving at the same speed anymore, and they were twitching, slightly. His voice quivered when he replied, despite his best efforts of sounding calm and unbothered. _Relax your face, take regular breaths._

“Oh? Why?” he asked. His voice cracked on the _“y”._

Harry sat down next to him then. The sofa cushion sacked downwards to his left in response to the weight added, and Draco had to shift his balance in order to remain upright. The familiar biting, prickling feeling of his nails digging into the soft skin of his palms kept him grounded while he waited, waited, waited.

An eternity later, Harry spoke again. “She met someone, she said. She would like to talk to you directly and—”

“I don’t want that.”

“I assumed you wouldn’t. I told her so.” Harry reassured him, quickly, and let his right hand rest carefully on Draco’s left leg, squeezing softly. “She wants to nullify the engagement, somehow. You have to agree to it, and sign some documents – don’t worry, I asked her to owl them to us.”

It allowed Draco to relax a little. “Oh.”

The floor was very interesting to him now. He had never payed much attention to it, but the wooden panels were old and scarred at the sides, partially turning into a faded yellow. Clearly the job done on them had not been perfect. Muggles rarely did anything perfectly, and yet Draco was slowly earning respect for them. They managed so well without magic. They had found so many clever ways to solve problems without magic. Problems a wizard could only ever solve with a little help, and a wand, and a spell. They built laptops, now. And phones; cars. He was fond of cars, recently, and wished he could drive. Maybe he’d learn it sometime, after they moved.

“So... she’s planning to marry someone else?”

Harry nodded next to him, which Draco could feel even if he wasn’t looking. “A muggle, actually.”

Draco snorted, then froze – Harry wouldn’t get it. If Astoria was marrying a muggle, Draco was doing _“better”_ than her. Her parents would not be fond of the idea of perfect little Astoria marrying a muggle – they had been oh so grateful when his father had accepted his mother’s proposal of an arranged marriage for Astoria and Draco. Lucius Malfoy had hated the idea, initially, but figured it was _“better than anything he’d come up with himself”._

In her flowing white dress, with some faintly yellow flowers, and her long hair loose, hanging into her face and reaching all the way to her hips, Astoria had looked very beautiful. Objectively. In each conversation they had shared, she had expressed herself carefully, yet firmly, disagreeing with him on multiple occasions without hesitating. No signs of submission. _Not like Mother_ , Draco thought. Though, of course, he did respect his mother. She had kept him sane when his father had worked so very hard to drive him in the opposite direction; but when it came to anything important, she had ducked behind him and let him reign his family dictatorship without even bothering to speak up once. When a cane had been raised, it never struck her. Always Draco. Unlike her, Astoria had been bold, firm and, in general, quite nice. But Draco had never been interested; and his father had let him bleed for it. He’d marry a pretty young woman and keep the family name going. There were no other _possibilities._

“Please come with me to Birmingham,” he spoke then, quietly. Next to him, Harry shifted uncomfortably. Draco never said _“please”_.

The hand on his thigh squeezed again, once, then Harry got up again. He walked to the window opposite them, and stared out into the empty backyard. It was not a nice sight, and it never would be – it was beyond time they moved away from here. This place was never supposed to be more than a makeshift base to begin with.

A moment later Draco watched as Harry turned his head – brown strands now long and curled (in desperate need of a haircut) – to look at him over his shoulder. Harry smiled weakly, and a low humming sound seemed to ring out from his throat.

“Okay.” he said, fixing his glasses. “Let’s move to Birmingham.”

**Author's Note:**

> No hate to Birmingham :D In fact, I was considering to move there for a long time before I changed my mind. Might move there eventually though.  
> Sorry this one wasn't too happy. Soon.


End file.
